The Dog
by Orange Disco Ball
Summary: "I didn't dislike the dog, but I despised the idea of living with him. It was a strange and unexplainable feeling. I have always loved animals and there was nothing particularly wrong with this one. He was cute even, as if he had just popped out of one of these motivational cards with sleeping puppies that people post on their social media pages". Gohan POV. One-shot.


This is my first attempt at writing that actually came out as a completed piece. English is not my first language, I suck at it and I have no beta so far - please forgive me for the many mistakes that surely are there.

I want to send my special thanks to Timaelan, the patient soul who introduced me to fanfiction writing and has been supporting me through all this. She writes beautifully in both English and French, and I strongly recommend her work.

Disclaimer: I do not own DBZ, etc., etc.

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On Pan's seventh birthday, Mr. Satan gave her a pup. It was a yellowish Labrador retriever; just like the one he got several years earlier sometime during the fight against Buu. I didn't dislike the dog, but I despised the idea of living with him. It was a strange and unexplainable feeling. I have always loved animals and there was nothing particularly wrong with this one. He was cute even, as if he had just popped out of one of these motivational cards with sleeping puppies that people post on their social media pages.

Pan was ecstatic, of course, and I couldn't find in myself the courage to give the dog away. I smiled and nodded instead, ignoring the tension building on my neck and shoulders. I told myself it was probably just some primitive territorial instinct responding to the fact that my father-in-law had just introduced a pet into my home without asking my permission beforehand. Or maybe I was anticipating the mess, dreading the prospect of urine on the carpet and chewed shoes.

"If you want this dog as badly as you claim, you have to take care of him", I told Pan on the very first day. The dog still had a ridiculous oversized orange bow tied around his neck. She agreed instantly in the most assertive and serious tone a seven-year-old could manage.

Pan called the dog Nail, the name Videl and I had picked for our second child. We had already given up having another kid at that point, so there was no real reason for not letting Pan use it for her own purposes. Thinking about it, maybe she did regard the dog as something like a sibling. She held entire conversations with him, brushing and braiding his fur while rambling on about her routine. I figured Pan was a solitary child, just like I had been back when I talked at wild beast and imagined them as my friends. Maybe for that reason she took so hard when Nail became attached to me more than to anyone else in our family.

I never understood what happened. Dogs are sensitive animals, there was no way he didn't feel my annoyance towards him. Whist Pan tendered him and Videl watched over his basic needs, I avoided him like the plague. There was this subtle reek of wet dog in every single room of the house; it itched deep inside my nostrils and triggered a constant headache whenever Nail was around – the kind that was too light for an aspirin but too strong to pass unnoticed. I missed the smell of air freshener and cleaning products in the air. I bore the pain for Pan's sake, but I definitely hold a grudge against the dog for it.

We had him for about six months the first time he waited for me to come back from work at the porch, waving his tail and jumping in circles like mad. I ignored him the best I could, searching for the keys in my pocket and denying him any sort of acknowledgement. Still, he waited for me again the next day, and the next, and every day since. The dog would nap next to my chair in the living room, cuddle at my home office door whenever I had to stay up working late. He wasn't that much interested in Pan anymore, and she felt the shift even before I did.

"Why doesn't Nail like me anymore?", she asked, one day.

"Of course he likes you, Pan", I tried to reassure her.

"But he likes you more", she simply answered.

I bought her a book about dogs and suggested Nail was naturally drawn to me by his pack instincts. I wasn't liked - I tried to explain - but he regarded me as his leader, his alpha, or whatever. But Pan couldn't help but to think of him as a person. She tried to win back the special spot in his heart with all sort of treats: longer walks around the woods, new chewing toys, bacon strips from the breakfast table, leg bones from Grandma Chichi's family feasts. The dog was delighted, but he would come back to cling at my feet as soon as her amusing things were over.

The sight of her disappointment made me resent the dog even more. I tried to push him away, avoided him harder than I already did, shushed him with more harshness than necessary. Even when Pan moved on from that childish jealousy, I was still thinking of ways to make Nail stick around someone else – anyone else but me. But he remained faithful to his attachment to me in the same proportion I hold on to my annoyance. The reek of wet dog followed me everywhere, itching, painfully pulsating on my temples.

I found myself wishing the dog would just run away. We lived next to my parents in Mount Paozu then, and Nail used walk off into the wilderness whenever the weather was nice. The sight of him disappearing into the bushes triggered twisted fantasies in my mind: What if he never comes back? What if he crosses paths with a larger predator and fulfills his role in the food chain? Shame hit me like a punch as I remembered to be standing in the sacred realm of my family home, Pan's gleeful face watching me from our family portraits. As the dog's familiar figure emerged back from the trees, I vowed to never think those dark thoughts again. I tried to pet him, to appreciate him, to coach myself up to the point of genuinely loving the dog. I told myself it was just like training, crafting habit with discipline and repetition. I could not meditate his smell away though, neither the annoying panting sounds he made, neither the painful poking sensation on my temples.

We had Nail for more than three years when I was offered a golden position at one of the most prestigious universities in the country. We were required to move immediately, leaving the Son lands for the respectable upper-middle class suburbs of Orange City. Videl was elated to go back to her urban roots. I loved what it meant for Pan: a better school, full of kids her age who would help her to outgrow the need to anthropomorphize our pet. I convinced her to let Nail stay behind with my mother.

"He needs space. The city is not a place for a big dog like him. And Grandma Chichi is always so alone, Nail will keep her company", I said while whipping her tears away. I was so relieved to finally get rid of him that I couldn't even feel guilty about it.

A month later, my grandfather fell sick out of sudden and my mother was required to leave to the Ox Village. Nail had to be taken to the city to stay with us. Pan was exhilarated. I was not happy. At all. He brought along that terrible wet dog reek, that beasty worship I despised, and the constant headache that put my nerves on edge.

I had been right and the city was an overwhelming environment for the dog indeed. He didn't understand the concept of private property and soon we started to get calls from all of our neighbors complaining about a wandering huge yellow Labrador retriever. Mrs. Ota accused him of ravishing her tulip garden. Mr. Agung said he caught Nail trying to copulate with his nightmare of a puddle. We called my mother - she was still needed at the Ox King's bedside and my father was God knows where. So, we put the dog in chains.

I pitied Nail then. The animal, used to wide spaces and the forest as our backyard, had just found himself confined to a tight squared jail, half paved and half covered with grass, surrounded by a high wall that spoiled any view of the street. Pan did her best to sooth his misery, walking him to a park close-by as often as she could. When she started secondary school, the new schedule made it impossible for her to be home early in the afternoon, condemning Nail to longer lonely hours of nothing but chains.

Things predictably got worse. The dog began to sleep during the day while we were all out to follow up with our normal routines and stayed awake at night. I first noticed it when I was startled by the sound of his chains being dragged around the backyard. Metal against pavement, metal against grass, metal against metal, scratching endlessly as he walked in circles. Videl and Pan could sleep peacefully at that sound, but to me, it was deafening. It was as if the chains were right next to me - no! It was as if they were inside my brain, scuffing against the walls of my skull. Most nights I would leave bed to shush him, only to find the yard covered with his filth, spread all over by the chains and his wandering paws. I was stuck in hell with a goofy version of Cerberus.

My light headaches turned into migraines. I blamed the chains and the lack of sleep. My nose itched terribly at the mere thought of Nail - as if the smell of wet dog and shit was permanently lingering in my nostrils. It got worse after the Department I worked for got a lower evaluation from the Ministry of Education and all teaching staff was put into a rampage to regain its former glory. We were given productivity targets and tensions were running high. I had to spend many nights working until dawn, trying to recycle old manuscripts to make sure I would be able to publish something - anything - new. As if sensing my watch, Nail was awake with me, dragging those chains, scratching the backyard door as if he wanted to occupy his old spot at my home office door. In the dead of the night every sound was amplified: his panting, his barking, his steps, and those damned chains. And the reek - I could smell it so strongly it irritated my eyes to the point of tears. I couldn't focus, I couldn't rest.

"Please, just sleep. Just go the fuck to sleep", I begged one night. He just looked at me with sparkling eyes and waved his tail.

Life went on like that. One month, two... Tiredness tends to make one lose any sense of time. I took the evening off to watch the final match for the National Football Cup, the most important sport event of the year. Orange City home team had performed miraculously that season and was playing at the finals for the first time in fifty years - classic underdog turned Cinderella story. The air was electrified with excitement. I was looking forward to enjoying the game and diving into oblivion.

Of course, football night meant screams, car horns and fireworks. Nail was nervous, as one would expect him to be. Every goal set a wave of yells, shouts and horns. The dog was running in circles, barking at the air, dragging and choking himself with the chains. Old bitch Mrs. Ota called to complain for the millionth time. I let Pan and Videl at the television room to deal with Nail. I found him fallen in an impossible position, squirming. The chains were wrapped around his ankles in an odd knot, probably due to his aimless race around that restricted space.

I tried to unwrap the chains first. I could easily break them, but then Nail would run loose and jump into the neighbor's property again. There was no need for more Mrs. Ota that evening. The dog was struggling fiercely: against the chains, against me, against the suffering sounds that seemed to come from everywhere. I had to embrace him to contain his movements as I was looking for a way to finish my job.

Nail was strong. I was stronger, much stronger, but that ordeal required subtlety of touch. I couldn't hold him too tight, which allowed him enough freedom of movement to fight back, ending up wrapped in those chains all over again. He was hurting himself - there was a rusty flair of blood in the air. The dog was too dumb and too nervous to realize I was actually trying to help him.

A longer sequence of fireworks and commotion from the neighbors indicated the match was over and Orange City had won. My anger skyrocketed when I realized I had spent the final minutes of that historical match pointlessly wrestling a dog. Colorful lights, loud bangs, and Nail was downright hysterical. His paws were all over my clothes, covering me with his filth. The whole situation reeked repulsively. My head was pulsing because of the migraine – I could feel my own heartbeat in my ears. The chains were scratching hard on the paved floor, and this time, it was indeed right next to me. I could hear it even in the midst of horns, yells and explosions.

There was a moment there, as I tried to contain the dog, that I felt blank. I was drained of any stamina and just wanted that struggle to end. There was a loud buzz at my ears - I was not sure if it were the honks, the fireworks, the chains, or just the headache. My grip around Nail instantly tightened. It wasn't much, just a squeeze, but then there was a crack. It was too noisy to hear, but there was a trembling sensation that sent a shock all over my arms as his bones crushed under my grip. The fall back to reality was so sudden that I even lost my balance and clumsily fell on my back. I knew, that very moment, that I had just killed the dog.

I panicked. Nail was dead, and Pan and Videl were right there inside the house. Without any command from my mind, one of my hands – I can't barely remember which one – fired a controlled _ki_ blast that instantly incinerated Nail's corpse. The dog was gone. Not even ashes were left – only a stain where his body laid, a small column of black smoke, and remaining pieces of chains scattered around the floor.

I turned around and came face to face with Pan at the backyard door.

"We won, Dad! Did you see…", she couldn't finish her sentence. I was sure she hadn't seen me crushing Nail, or blasting him, but there was a characteristic smell of burnt flesh and fur in the air. I was a mess, covered with sweat and shit, and probably looking guilty.

Pan stared at me for what felt like hours, waiting for me to tell her it wasn't what it looked like. But I couldn't lie. It wouldn't be plausible. Nail was there, and then he wasn't. Lying to her about it would be an offense even worse than being the culprit of the dog's demise. I just stayed there, petrified, as my daughter ran upstairs and locked herself in her room. Videl was in the backyard with me shortly afterwards.

"What happened?"

I couldn't meet her eyes. "I killed Nail".

Silence. She was trying to process what I had just said or waiting for me to continue. Probably both.

"He was out of control", I resumed. "I tried to contain him. I held him too tight, I think".

Videl blinked as if picturing the scene and breathed out heavily in relief. "So, it was an accident. I'll talk to Pan", she said just before heading to our daughter's bedroom.

 _An accident._ That was the answer Videl needed: it implied I wasn't a monster who killed dogs out of the blue. Pan would understand it for sure, and I would remain her perfect loving dad.

I couldn't sleep that night, even with the lack of chains and headaches. I felt guilty. Not about the dog _per se_ – I was happy he was gone, so happy that it made me wonder if I hadn't killed him on purpose. I tried to remember the sequence of events, frame by frame, and the precise moment my grip around Nail fatally tightened. Did I lose control? The memory was somewhat confusing: all that noise, the reek, the struggle, and the buzz in my head...

"It doesn't matter if the dog bothered you", Videl said once I shared my concerns with her. "You didn't have any intention to kill him that time. You were trying to help him even. _That_ makes an accident".

Maybe she was right. I did killed before, intentionally, and the purpose of bringing death is a peculiar and unmistakable sensation. But then I was dealing powerful beings, and living up to that particular intention was laborious. Crushing Nail was something I did only with nothing but a squeeze, a twitch of muscles – something as casual as stepping over a bug. And people don't _murder_ bugs, right? I could do it to Videl even, and it would be easy, so easy, that I would barely break a sweat. But why would I do it? I love my wife, and even if I didn't, her life is too valuable to be wasted in such a manner. I have always been careful around her - subtle and soft, as her fragile body requires me to be.

Was that what happened? Was I… careless, for an instant? I knew Nail's life mattered. Pan loved him. It didn't matter he annoyed me. Or that his smell irritated my nostrils. Or that the noise of the chains gave me sleepless nights and impossible headaches. Or that I hated the fact he had decided to be my dog, when he was supposed to be Pan's. It shouldn't matter - I would never go on killing for such trivial reasons. Right? Yet, he was right there, under my arms, just a twitch of muscles away of not being a burden anymore.

Pan was shattered, but eventually she spoke to me again. I planted a tree at the backyard – a sort of memorial for Nail - and she was satisfied with it. We never mentioned him again, and as time passed, I stopped thinking too hard about that night and whatever had led me to kill the dog. Everyone accepted it was an accident, and I could live with that explanation as well.

Once in a while, I still wake up in the middle of the night, with the clear impression that I had just heard the sound of chains being dragged around the backyard.


End file.
